Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
by E. M. Morning
Summary: Everyone has a couple of skeletons in this closet and Yusuke has a couple that are begging to come out. Will he be able to fight off his haunting demons by himself, or will he swallow his pride by admitting something is wrong and ask his friends for help?


Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Chapter 1

There are many things you cannot tell by looking at something. For instance, you can't always tell if an apple is good or bad. On the outside it can look shiny and perfectly fine, but once you take a bite into it you may find yourself with a mouthful of squished worm guts. It's like that stupid cliché; you can't judge a book by its cover. Although the saying has gone through its worth, it does happen to be extremely true. When students get one of those books assigned in literature class, the ones with the bland covers and odd titles, they assume that the content of the books are going to be just as boring as their name. But if a student tries and actually reads the story he or she may find it to be much more interesting, possibly even enjoyable, and not quite all what was previously expected.

It can be like that with people too. You can look at them and form a general opinion on what the person is like, and what sort of life he or she leads. One may be taking a stroll down the sidewalk and spot a soccer mom trying to round up all of her children into the family car. The woman may look like she has it all together on the outside; good looks, a beautiful family, a nice house with a huge yard. Once the cover is peeled back one may find completely different story. It turns out in reality that the woman is an alcoholic mother who screams terribly at her kids when she is not cheering for them on the sidelines of the soccer field. People may pass the homeless man napping on the side walk, and try to avoid him because it would not be good to associate with someone who could potentially be drug obsessed bum that is too lazy to do any work. Little do they know that just five years ago the very same man was a well respected businessman who lost his wife, young daughter, and all of his material possessions to a fire one night. Although he tried to continue his life, the man could not escape his growing cloud of depression and sunk further into it. Through a strong of more unfortunate events the man found himself homeless. A street punk can to walk into his school and have the sea of students step aside in order to let him pass. The same kid, whose presence can make his peers tremble in fear, wakes up screaming during the night because of nightmares.

Yusuke Urameshi had been terrorized by his dreams for around four years now. Too much of his embarrassment, he found himself lying awake in a cold sweat, his mind reeling and skink prickling all because of something that was not real and could not possibly hurt him. Oh, if only they all knew that big bad wolf Yusuke Urameshi was actually scare little puppy dog. They would fall into an endless fit of laughter, and his reputation of being a bad ass could never be recovered. Luckily, though, no one knew. Not even his mother, who was often too lost in a drunken fog to pay much attention to what her song was doing. For years Yusuke had worked on trying to block out his dreams. But the time he was fourteen he had nearly perfected it; the key word here is "nearly". Although Yusuke always tried his hardest to suppress his dreams, every now and then one would slip back into his mind to once again torture him. But of course, skeletons can only stay in the closet for so long. Everything eventually gets too piled up and falls out.

One of Yusuke's skeletons managed to make an appearance one unfortunate night. Yusuke, along with his friend Kuwabara, had been staying the night at Master Genkai's temple after a long day of training when that skeleton nearly fell out. When Yusuke has nightmares they all have a similar theme. He was always being hunted down by someone or something, and not matter how much he tried he could never escape. That night it was one that reoccurred often. He would be in his own bed, sleeping, when he is suddenly woken up by an odd scratching noise. He turns on the lamp beside his bed and tries to find out where the noise is coming from. He sees nothing that could be visibly making the sound, so gets out of bed to further investigate. He checks his closet, and finds nothing but a mess of clothing. He even checks the floor boards, thinking that maybe a mouse or some other rodent got caught up underneath. No answer there either. It is not until he has checked under his bed that Yusuke realized that the noise is coming from outside. He walks towards the window feeling very aware of his surroundings, half expecting whatever is making the noise to jump out and attack him at any moment. The window is already and a cool breeze is flowing through. Yusuke pokes his head through, and looks into the black night. He sees nothing, but the scratching continues. His eyes move downward as he leans a little further out of the window to get a better look. He spies a man several stories below clawing at a window. Yusuke cocks his head slightly to the left and wonders what the fuck kind of creeper hangs out at windows in the middle of the night, and in dress clothes above all things. The man looks up just as if he had read Yusuke's mind. The two stare at each other for a moment. Yusuke's heart freezes, and as hard as he tries to look away and creep back to bed, he can't. It was as if their eyes were locked together and the stranger was not letting go. Then, suddenly, the man begins to move. He crawls up the wall of the building in a spider-like way at an inhumane speed. His lips are pulled back in a malicious grin, revealing chalky yellow fangs. A milk colored film has covered his eyes, but they still had a glint of evil intent. As the spider-man draws nearer, Yusuke does not move. Not because he is ready to fight, but because he is too scared to move. He is also partly intrigued by this even and almost wants to see what happens next. The spider-man reaches Yusuke and crouches on the window sill. They once again stare at each other. The ability to move starts to come back to Yusuke. His fingers twitch, as he tries to summon some of his spirit energy and strength to knock this creature out. Neither comes. The man's steaming hot breath seeps through his bared teeth, and burns Yusuke's nostrils. The boy slightly lifts his right foot, prepared to make a run for the door. Before he can take one step the spider-man launches forward, and latches his yellow teeth into the soft flesh of Yusuke's face. The pain is unbearable. It feels all too real to be a dream. Yusuke opens his mouth to cry out, but nothing happens. This is when he usually wakes up, but sometimes he is not so lucky and as the dream goes on, the monster continues to eat him alive.

Genkai had been fast asleep in her own room when she first heard the screams. "What the hell is going on," she mumbled to herself as she slowly came back to consciousness. There was another scream. Genkai laid frozen as her brain tried to process the sound. By the third, her eyes popped open as her mind clicked it together. "Yusuke? What possible trouble could that dimwit gotten himself into at this time of night?" She leapt out of bed and rushed to where the boys were supposed to be sleeping, half expecting to find her student being torn apart by some huge demon. Instead, she found Yusuke tangled up in bed screaming with Kuwabara kneeling beside him, trying to wake his friend up. "What the hell is going on?" Genkai yelled.

Kuwabara looked over, noting her presence for the first time. "I dunno," he answered. "I woke up when I heard him screaming, and I can't get him to stop. I think there's something wrong with him."

Genkai resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course there was something wrong with him, he is screaming bloody murder. She walked over to besides Yusuke's bed and knelt down. "Yusuke, wake up," she demanded. Her voice was stern. Most of the time when she spoke in that manner her student would listen right away, but not this time. Yusuke continued to toss amongst the sheets, and mumble to himself, occasionally letting out a scream. Genkai places her hands on Yusuke's shoulders and tries to still him. Once again she demands him to wake up, but this time in a calmer tone. Yusuke's body continued to twitch. His eye lids fluttered violently. Kuwabara made a face.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked. "Is he possessed or something?"

"No," Genkai growled. "He's sleeping."

"Doesn't look like sleeping to me."

Genkai closed her eyes as she took in a deep breath. She couldn't stand kids, especially for hours on end. She let go of the still crying Yusuke and raised one of her hands. "Hey, Dimwit, wake up!" she yelled. She brought her open hand down and struck it across the boy's face. Yusuke stopped struggling against the invisible forces, and opened his bleary eyes to see an annoyed looking Genkai and a baffled Kuwabara staring at him. He blinks twice to help his eyes focus better. "What? What the hell are you two doing?

"Eh, what are you talking about, Urameshi?" Kuwabara spoke. "You're the one that was just screaming his head off."

Yusuke froze. "No I wasn't," he says defensively, hoping that he was not lying. He remembered the dream, but not the screaming part. He did not do this around other people. No one knew about that.

"Yeah, you kind of were," Kuwabara went on. "Neither of us could make you stop until Genkai here had to smack you."

Yusuke placed his hand up against his cheek just now realizing the stinging pain sensation. "Oh fuck," he thought. "Oh shit. How the hell am I going to explain this?" Yusuke narrows his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said out loud. "But I'm going back to sleep. Try not to be creepin' by me when I wake up. Good night." he turned away from the other two and pulls the covers up nearly over his head.

"Yusuke," Genkai started to say, but she was cut off by Yusuke.

"Sorry, Grandma, I can't hear you. I'm sleeping.

Genkai and Kuwabara remained still as Yusuke continued to pretend to be asleep. Kuwabara, suddenly realizing how tired he is, shrugs his shoulders and returns to his own bed. "Can never understand that guy," he says mostly to himself. "Good night, again, Genkai."

Genkai was a bit more reluctant to go back to sleep. Something was off, she could sense it, but this was not the time to find out. There was no way she would be able to get any answers out of Yusuke at this time. Her best bet was going back to bed and get as much rest as she could so she would have enough energy to drill Yusuke with questions in the morning.

* * *

Yusuke of course knew that he would not have to avoid last night's incident for long, especially considering the fact Kuwabara would be walking with him to school, and knowing Kuwabara he would be too dense to figure out when to not talk about certain subjects. They managed to make it out of the temple without it coming up, but Yusuke's luck lasted halfway to school when they ran into Keiko. Most day when both boys chose to go to school they would walk past Keiko's house, and escort her to school to make sure no creeps try do mess with her. Today was no different. As always they found Keiko standing in front of her house waiting for them. As soon as Yusuke saw her he began to feel a headache growing. He liked Keiko, of course. Hell, some may even call it love. She had been his best friend and only friend for awhile for a long time, but as much as Yusuke liked her he was not in the mood to deal with her chipper attitude. Happy people only made his bad moods worse, and Keiko had the uncanny ability to wake up every morning in a perfectly cheerful mood. According to Yusuke, this was not normal. Sound minded people should not be that excited that early in the morning.

The boys pause in front of her house to wait for her to join them. "Hey, guys!" Keiko greeted her friends. She flashed them a blinding smile. Yusuke was torn between the urge to hug or punch her. He chose to do neither. Damn her for being able to be so happy. "Did you guys study for the Biology test today?" Keiko asked as the trio began walking. "I heard it is supposed to be hard. I know we reviewed for it for it all class yesterday, but I still studied for a couple of hours last night to make sure. I'm kind of worried about it."

"Yeah, me too," Kuwabara said. "I studied for a bit, but I'm pretty sure I got most of it nailed down. Well, at least enough of it to pass."

"What about you, Yusuke?" Keiko asks looking up at him. "Did you study or did you have more important things to do at the arcade?"

"Yeah, Keiko, I studied. I stayed up the whole night looking at that damn book like a good boy."

"You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"

"Duh! Like I would actually waste my time studying that stupid crap," Yusuke said. "I haven't even been in class this week enough to even know what to fucking study."

"You know, Yusuke," Keiko begins to say.

Yusuke closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. "You know, Yusuke"s never lead to anything good. It's never "You know, Yusuke, you're a really great guy" or "You know, Yusuke, it's a great thing you're saving the world all the time. Thanks for that!" Nope, it was never anything positive like that. They were always the beginnings of drawn out rants that he had heard a million times before.

Keiko went on talking. "You aren't going to get anywhere in life if you keep skipping school all of the time. Education is a very important thing, you know. You won't be able to-."

"Yeah, I know," Yusuke cut in. "I've heard you say it about a thousand and one times. You would think by the thousand and second you'd figure out that I don't give a fuck."

The corners of Keiko's mouth dropped down into a tight scowl. So much for her good mood. "Gosh, Yusuke! What's your problem?"

"Oh, don't worry about him, Keiko," Kuwabara said, jumping into the argument. "He's all cranky because he was up crying all night."

Yusuke shot him a glare. "I'm going to punch you're ugly face in if you don't shut up right now."

"Crying?" Keiki asked. For a moment her scowl disappears, leaving her with a more worried than pissed off look. "Why? What happened?"

"Nothing, that's what," Yusuke said. "I wasn't even crying. Kuwabara is just an idiot that has no idea what he is talking about."

Kuwabara, obviously not taking Yusuke's threats seriously, went on talking. "We don't know. I just woke up when I heard Yusuke over here screaming his head off. We couldn't get him to stop until Genkai smacked him."

"Shut up!" Yusuke yelled. He stopped walking, causing his two companions to. He turned around to face them before telling them off. "I was not crying or screaming. Got it? There is nothing wrong with me. You hear me? Nothing. You," he said pointing to Keiko, "are over reacting to nothing. And you." He points to Kuwabara. "Are an idiot, who is also over reacting." Yusuke swiftly turns on his heel and continues walking towards school. "Let's just to that damned school and get this day over with before I have to beat someone up."

Kuwabara and Keiko stand in place for a moment, still feeling the aftershock of Yusuke's outburst. They exchanged a quick glance at each other, shrugged, and followed Yusuke. "Pish, and he says I'm the one over reacting."

* * *

**So, I know this isn't a very good start. I am hoping that the later chapters will be longer, and of course better written. Hopefully I will get some good work done on this before school starts up again, and my whole schedule is ruined. Thanks for reading! **


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